RISE 2019 Conference

Aleyda Villavicencio is the project leader of the Innovation Ecosystems Development Program at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. She is an industrial engineer with over 15 years of experience in engineering design, manufacturing, sales, and project management in world-class manufacturing organizations. For almost 10 years, she traveled throughout the Mexican-American border visiting dozens of manufacturing facilities, helping them design new products and identifying the best possible components and vendors for their newly developed platforms, until her curiosity and interest for social issues brought her to Harvard. Aleyda received a Master’s Degree in Journalism from the Harvard Extension School and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from the Tec of Monterrey in Mexico. As a journalist committed to showcasing Mexican talent in STEM areas, she had the opportunity to interview dozens of students, scientists, and entrepreneurs in the Boston metropolitan area. This exercise of talking to multiple innovators and educators brought her to the Innovation Ecosystems Development Program at Harvard, where she works with multiple organizations around the world, transferring the best practices of the Bostonian innovation ecosystem to their local communities. Her objective: supporting community education programs to foster academia-private sector collaborations strengthening local innovation hubs around the world. Her passion: Mexican culture with an emphasis on gastronomy and politics, in that order. Her commitment: promoting education and the accomplishment of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.